Page 1 of 2

TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:59 pm
by larroyo33
I wanted to get my wife and my two dogs up in the High Sierra over 4th of July weekend. My wife had not been backpacking in almost two years, so she wanted a fairly easy hike. Little Lakes Valley seemed like the perfect option because the trail allows you to get deep into the High Sierra in minimal time and with minimal gain.

Image
Us With The Dogs Above Box Lake

It was definitely bear country out there. We saw a bear running around down by Box Lake, and then we saw another bear at Long Lake. The bear at Long Lake put on quite the show for us. He did a lap in the lake, swimming from the far end of the lake until about 20 yards in front of us on the trail and then scampered up the hill towards Chickenfoot Lake. The bear was a strong doggie paddler. When we got up to Chickenfoot Lake, people told us that they had just seen a bear. I figured it was the same bear, but you never know.

We made it up to Chickenfoot Lake and set up camp there. We had a nice afternoon by the lake. There were some big puffy clouds in the sky that gave us some much needed shade. I worried about the clouds turning into an afternoon thunderstorm, but by the early evening the sky started to clear up.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oqdpeo]Image

MoMo Lounging

[url=https://flic.kr/p/o8K8jA]Image

Chickenfoot Lake Vertical

Around 7:30 p.m., I was sitting on a rock staring at the sky waiting to see how the sunset was shaping up and then I saw off in the distance a huge wall of purplish clouds coming straight at us. I knew it was a thunderstorm headed our way, so my wife and I got all of our stuff organized in our tent for the storm. I waited in the tent until about 8:20. I knew it was about sunset time, and it was not raining that hard, so I ran down to the lake with my camera to see what I could capture before it started raining harder. I only ended up having about 5 minutes to take pictures, but boy was I happy I went down there.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/o8K8jf]Image

High Sierra Storm

In the morning, there were still some lingering clouds so I went back down to the lake to try and take some morning reflections shots.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/opXBCk]Image


[url=https://flic.kr/p/o8KgWU]Image


Once I finished taking pictures, we packed up and headed back down the trail. The skeeters were pretty bad in the morning (the rain the night before probably made them worse), so other than a stop off at Long Lake for more pictures, we just hustled down the trail back to the parking lot.

[url=https://flic.kr/p/ood2S1]Image
[url=https://flic.kr/p/ood2S1]
Long Lake

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 8:49 am
by giantbrookie
Beautiful photos and nice report. That's also a pretty neat experience to see that bear swim across Long Lake!

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 9:23 am
by LMBSGV
The Chickenfoot (what a name for such a beautiful lake) storm and sunrise photos are marvelous.

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2014 3:19 pm
by jessegooddog
How lucky to have such great bear sightings and those gorgeous colorful clouds! Nice report!

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 8:46 am
by jmac
Beautiful photos! I really like the first sunset shot with the wall of rain in the background. I'll be up there in two days to take my kids on their first backpacking trip. I hope the sunsets are as good to me. Thanks for the TR and the inspiration.

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 10:32 am
by SSSdave
Looks like you all had a fine trip. Nice images.

I also so a light tan young bear thrashing around in Box Lake, morning July 12. Where you took your group pic above Box, a large international Christian organization group of over 100 people stopped later that morning and sang a series of and well known popular music and religious songs for about an hour led by an acoustic guitarist. I was about 3/10 mile away across the lake and up some at the time and was amazed at how strong their voices carried. Was quite wonderful.

During following week of Monsoon flow from se and thunderstorm flow from the sw Rock Creek got some considerable precipitation. Enough that when I went back after a backpack down south on July 19, noted good numbers of new wildflowers had bloomed and generally there is considerable green everywhere. In fact despite the drought, I was quite impressed what is showing above Mosquito Flat. An excellent choice in the next week or two for day hiking in the Sierra. Although it is pounded by heavy day use, for the topo savvy offtrail hikers, it is very easy to avoid all people by vectoring off the trail early beyond Mack Lake, crossing the creek to the east side, then working south and can do so all the way to Chickenfoot or head back west to the trail at any of several points.

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2014 4:32 pm
by ofuros
Great pics, larroyo33.
Sharing the wilderness experience with your family gets a big thumbs up in my book... :thumbsup:

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 11:29 am
by larroyo33
Thanks for the compliments guys. Yeah, bears and thunderstorms made it a pretty exciting trip for a simple overnighter. I thought the name Chickenfoot Lake was odd until I was standing on a hill on the south side of the lake and I could see four or five little pennisulas on the north side of the lake. It made me think maybe the lake does look like a chickenfoot when viewed from above.

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 12:02 pm
by balance
larroyo

Thanks for the spectacular photos. I wonder how your two dogs reacted to hearing the thunderstorm from a tent? Sometimes dogs don't like thunder even inside a house.

Peace.

Re: TR: Little Lakes Valley 7/5-7/6/14

Posted: Thu Jul 24, 2014 3:32 pm
by jessegooddog
A group of 100? Waaay too many on that already overused trail, in my opinion.
I was unable to figure out a way to Chickenfoot off trail from Mack, as the narrow and steep willow choked steam bed forced me back to the 3rd lake. What did I miss?